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Thursday, July 08, 2004

No news here

Sure, public school teachers are having sex with students, but "Out of the millions of teachers and millions of employees out there, you're talking about a very small number who are doing these inappropriate things," said Paul Houston, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators. "As long as we keep it in context, recognizing any kind of problem like this is always a good move."

Isn’t that nice? Charol Shakeshaft’s report on sexual abuse in the schools, a report commissioned by the Education Department under the No Child Left Behind act, shows that roughly 4.5 million (that’s right, million) students were sexually harassed or abused during the course of the last decade in the public school system. Roughly ten percent of school officials are believed to be molesters, and this number is believed to be low due to reporting bias.

In comparison, about four percent of priests in the last five decades were abusers. Those five decades created more than 11,000 abuse accusations against priests, of which 6,700 were substantiated, 1,000 were unsubstantiated, and the remainder were not investigated because the accused priests had died. Over half of the accused had only one accusation lodged against them, while 3 percent had 10 or more allegations. Seventy-eight percent of the alleged victims were between the ages of 11 to 17, while nearly 6 percent were 7 or younger.

4.5 million versus 11000.One decade versus five decades.Hmm....

That works out to 450,000 abuse cases from the public schools per year versus 220 abuse cases per year for priests or a difference of roughly 2000 percent.